Governments across Africa tried to tax digital transfers. Ghana’s levy became so unpopular it was abolished. Cameroon’s is still collected. Which approach raised money, and which drove people back to cash?

In 2022, two governments made the same bet within weeks of each other. Ghana introduced an electronic transfer levy on mobile money and other digital payments. Cameroon introduced a modest levy on mobile money transfers and withdrawals. The logic was identical: mobile money had become the main payment channel of the informal economy, and taxation had not followed.

What happened next

Ghana’s levy became a political symbol. Revenue fell far short of projections, users split transactions or reverted to cash, and the tax was eventually abolished. Cameroon’s levy, set at a lower rate, attracted less protest and has remained.

The comparison is the article. It needs numbers: revenue collected against projections, transaction volumes before and after, and any measurable shift back to cash.

The deeper trade-off

Every finance ministry in the region faces the same tension. Tax revenue is scarce, and mobile money is one of the few visible flows in an economy that is largely informal. But mobile money is also the main instrument of financial inclusion. Taxing it discourages exactly the behaviour that policy elsewhere promotes.

There is a third path worth exploring: taxing the operators’ profits and interchange revenue rather than each transaction. It is less visible to users and harder to avoid.

Why it matters now

The BEAC has joined the pan-African payment system, and instant payment infrastructure is spreading across the region. Whatever is decided about taxing digital transfers will shape how that infrastructure is used for the next decade.